1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to storage/organizing devices used in networking environments. More particularly, the present invention relates to a communications patching system that includes a support for communications lines and one or more panels pivotably mounted to the support, the panels including holders for communications adapters.
2. Description of the Related Art
In communication cabinets and racks, a multitude of cables are interconnected to one another via splices and connectors, such as adapters in the case of fiber optic cables and jacks in the case of copper conductor cables. A cable organization unit having a tray or shelf or similar platform is a convenient way to mount cabling devices, such as splice holders, adapters and slack storage devices (e.g., clips, guides, spools). The cabling devices may be mounted to the shelf in a highly organized fashion. Optionally, the cabling devices may be withdrawn from a housing mounted to the rack or cabinet via a sliding action of the shelf to provide for easy access and manipulation of the cabling devices on a rear portion of the shelf by a technician. The front portion of the shelf typically presents a bulkhead populated with adapters (in the case of fiber optic connections) or jacks (in the case of copper cables, such as twisted pair cables or coaxial cables).
Such cable organization units are generally known in the background art and more details of such devices may be seen in U.S. Pat. Nos. 7,120,348; 7,079,744; 7,068,907; 6,968,111; 6,944,389; 6,937,807; 6,748,155; 6,591,051; 6,504,988; 6,438,310; and 6,263,141, each of which is herein incorporated by reference.
It is desirable to provide fiber optic distribution equipment/copper cable distribution equipment, like patch panels, with increased connector port density. “Density” refers to the number of locations, or ports, per unit volume or unit area for providing connections. Many shelves are configured to a standard size. A standard height of 1.75 inches is known in the art as a “rack unit” or “U”. For example, a 2 U shelf would have a height of 3.5 inches. If a 2 U shelf had 96 connections, the shelf would have a 48 connections/U density.
On a standard shelf in accordance with the background art, the higher the connection/U density, the more difficult it is to make connections and disconnections, and labeling of ports is more closely spaced and difficult to understand and view. However, in some network environments (such as storage area network (SAN) environments), there is a need for a higher density adapter/jack arrangement on the bulkhead of the shelf. The higher density adapter/jack arrangement also needs to be sized to be installed on a standard sized shelf of a traditional rack and/or cabinet. One such application is in cabinet patching support of high density SAN switching hardware that typically takes up most of the available rack space. A patch panel with higher density than traditional patch panels would have value and use in this application.
Fiber optic patch panel shelves typically include metal drawer type shelves in a 1 U or greater size (e.g., 1 U, 2 U, 3 U and 4 U are typical sizes of design configurations). The shelves are populated with fiber optic adapters in panels, have space for behind-the-bulkhead-wall cable management, options for splicing, support for pre-terminated hardware, and a trough in the front for fiber optic patch cord management. There are available fixed and sliding versions of these shelves. The sliding versions typically use drawer type slides to allow the shelf to slide out of the front plane of the equipment rack. These shelves may include modular cable organizing products pre-installed at the factory or connection features to accommodate modular cable organizing products installed in the field.
The traditional fiber shelves have typically been configured with a single patch panel or multiple modular patch panels on the front patching side of a bulkhead of the shelf in either a single continuous plane or two angled planes to ease patching. With this configuration, total density of connectors/adapters has been limited to the available space in the rack unit that the shelf resides in, and by the ergonomics associated with installing and removing connectors from the fiber adapters/cable jacks on the patch panel. Specifically, if the adapters are placed too closely together it becomes difficult to grasp a connector to insert it into or remove it from the adapter. It would therefore be desirable to provide a communications patching system that allowed adapters to be mounted in closer proximity than has heretofore been practicable while providing sufficient room at the adapters to allow for the easy connection and disconnection of optical fibers and other cables.